American Road Trip

It may seem odd to still be writing about Maine nearly four months after my return from Vactionland, but the Pine Tree State has a way of staying with you.  While this is due mostly to the essential quality of the place (see Genius Loci in Acadia), the quantity of made in Maine products that accompanied my return home must also be taken into account.  Some years, it’s potatoes.  They’re the state’s largest crop and the varieties that come down from Aroostook County are astonishing.   But this year, perhaps because I’d been to Idaho in the spring, and had even stopped off at the Idaho Potato Museum in the town of Blackfoot, the spuds of Maine spud held no allure.

Thus, this year, it was blueberries, the wild, low-bush variety that grow on 60,000 Down East acres. According to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Maine is the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world, which explains why they turn up almost as often as lobsters on tourist tchotckes.

Though vanccinium angustifolium are charmingly picturesque, I prefer mine to be comestible rather than graphic.  They taste best when warmed by the sun on a granite topped mountain in Acadia, where the act of picking them after a vigorous hike on a rusticator’s trail is shamefully enjoyable—a little agricultural labor for the bourgeois-at leisure Slow Food set, sort of like Marie Antoinette in the Hameau at Versailles.

By the time I’ve picked enough for a couple of pies, stooping over and crouching down have lost their appeal, and no small order of rest is required.

But the desire for wild blueberries remains as acute as the pain in my lower back and it becomes only stronger once the car is pointed south.  So this year I decided to return with a complete inventory.  Blueberry Ale from the Atlantic Brewing Company in Bar Harbor is much like a traditional lambic.

Back River blueberry gin from the Sweetgrass Distillery in Union makes an excellent martini if you prefer  strong botanicals, as I do.  The blueberries are a fine compliment to the juniper.

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These blueberry beverages are immensely satisfying, but I feared they were too far removed from the thing itself.  So this year I also returned home with ten pounds of fresh blueberries purchased from an elderly couple running a farm stand out of their garage somewhere on U.S. 1 south of Ellsworth.

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My friend Charles, who lives in Portland and can be accurately described as the King of Pancakes, had assured me that you can stick a box of blues in the freezer and scoop them out as needed, all winter long.  I believed him, but I had to weigh my desire for blueberries against pragmatics. When you don’t have the luxury of a single-family-detached-house-sized kitchen, a 10-pound box of blueberries requires a serious piece of freezer real estate.

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It would mean displacing 4 pounds of vegetarian suet and 6 pounds of Smith College pecans, not to mention a couple of bottles of vodka.  Were the contents of that 14 x 10 x 4 box going to be worth the space?

Yes.  On a cold morning in December at the start of winter, a warm muffin filled with wild Maine blueberries is a very good thing.

Still, this commitment to blueberries was not without consequences.  A subsequent purchase of fifty pounds of grass-fed, pastured beef from some friends in Duchess County necessitated off-site storage in a basement freezer in el Barrio.

I’m still searching for a recipe for beef and blueberry stew.  Suggestions welcome.